


Their Brave New World

by the_wordbutler



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They drive and drive and drive, through plains and desert and hills, the top down and the music blaring.</p>
<p>Bucky's been a fool for lesser things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Their Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt: _so, this might seem weird and not be a prompt you can fill, but how about Steve and Bucky exploring the modern world together (in a perfect world where they are not viciously torn apart by war and communism)_. 
> 
> Or: an alternate universe that supposes both Bucky and Steve survived and ended up in New York in the modern world.

They rent a car—the kind where you can put the top down with the push of a button and let the wind blow through your hair—and head out on Historic Route 66.

Stark’d handed Steve a “goodie bag” (his words) before they’d boarded the (private) jet for Chicago, and even though Steve’s squirreled away most the contents in his bag or, who knows, in his pockets, the first thing they do is break out the music player. It fits in their palms but boasts thousands of songs organized by decade, and that’s how they drive through rural Illinois: top down, wind blowing, blaring the “1950s standards” playlist. They work up to “1950s love songs” after lunch in a roadside diner where everything smells and tastes like the local greasy spoon back home in Brooklyn. If Bucky thinks Steve looks at him a little too long from the passenger’s seat during some of the songs, he keeps it to himself.

The motel they find offers a vibrating bed. They lay on it and laugh. 

"Glad to know we fought for this," Bucky says.

Steve grins and feeds the box another quarter. “The American way,” he replies, and Bucky knocks him off the bed.

On the second day, Banner calls to check in on them, and they find out that cell phones cut in and out a lot when you’re in the middle of nowhere. They pull off the route pretty often, stopping at _The World’s Largest This_ and _The Midwest’s Best That_ and snapping pictures with the goodie bag’s camera. They buy postcards at rest stops, sample a different soda at every gas station—Coca-Cola and root beer taste different than they used to, but ginger ale’s pretty much the same and Steve spits out the Mountain Dew soon as it hits his tongue—and try on stupid hats in hotel gift shops. They lose hours one day on a scenic route, admiring the views and taking photos of the rolling plains, the sunset, and the sky.

(When Bucky figures out how to work the camera, he notices that Steve’s also taken a lot of pictures of him: leaning up against the car, eating sour cream and onion potato chips ( _amazing_ , by the way), laughing at a joke. Bucky keeps that to himself, too.)

They see half the country, maybe more of it, driving through rain storms and sunshine and a terrifying creation called an automatic car wash. They sleep in motels older than they are and brand new ones that still smell of paint, eat a hundred kinds of food at a hundred different restaurants, and laugh until their stomachs hurt. Better still, they talk sometimes, remembering the people they used to know: Peggy, of course, but also the Commandos, and Stark’s dad, all the people who came before them. Bucky decides in New Mexico that they’re on a memorial trip as much as anything else, and when they stop in a small town that night, they stand in the dark and tell one story for each person they miss, eulogies for a time that’s escaped them.

They’re sitting in a gas station parking lot in Arizona when Steve leans over in the middle of a song called “For the Longest Time” and kisses Bucky slow and sweet, his hand on Bucky’s neck and his eyes closed even after they’re finished.

(Bucky discovers a couple hours later that the goodie bag included a lot more than a camera, cell phone, and music player. He texts Stark thank you; Stark replies with _oh god I did not need to know you used them that’s horrifying and you’re welcome_.)

They drive and drive and drive, through desert and hills and finally into Los Angeles. They wear Mickey Mouse ears at Disney Land and discover that, aside from the ears, there’s not a whole lot of Mickey Mouse left there; they walk over stars dedicated to actors they know and actors they’ve never heard of. Pepper texts them reservation information for the grandest hotel Bucky’s ever seen, and for two days, they don’t leave the room except to refill the goodie bag.

Steve blushes about that, and Bucky laughs.

The world, Bucky thinks, is bigger and louder now, brighter and more crowded, full of strange things he’s never thought to explore. But the last day of the trip, he stands with Steve on a beach, their toes in the Pacific Ocean, and he thinks he likes their brave new world.

Then Steve kisses him, and he knows he does.


End file.
